


Dulce Domum (sweetly at home)

by concernedlily



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Reunion Sex, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 16:08:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4106950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concernedlily/pseuds/concernedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We've had an agent under deep cover in South America, this last six months. We thought he might have been killed, earlier this week, but I've been told he's made contact."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dulce Domum (sweetly at home)

_Report received from Galahad. Jet retrieval planned for 2000 GMT. Believed minor medical attention required._

Harry is at a bilateral with the current JIC chair when he receives the text - a rather stuffy term for what is usually a reasonably welcome duty with excellent Indian food and decent company, the current appointee being a woman also plucked from the excitement of the field for the more complex pleasures and challenges of leadership. They've concluded the official business and are about to get down to the more enjoyable pastime of a good gossip about others in the intelligence field over a really very good Beaujolais, when Harry feels the quiet, insistent vibration in his jacket pocket that signals an urgent message.

"If you need to leave..." Dame Anne says delicately. 

"Not at all," he says. His glass is nearly empty, hers still half full; it's poor etiquette but he picks up the bottle and tops off her glass then his, schooling himself to wait a couple of moments before taking a sip, rather than the gulp he'd like. She's a shrewd, neat woman, and watching him now with a level of sympathy that rather alarmingly means he's visibly rattled. Harry takes a deep breath. He allows the relief and gratitude to suffuse him the way it wants, take on form and shape and colour in his mind; thus mastered, he can put his feelings away until later. The impatience stays, but that wasn't entirely a bad thing, for most of his career, and he's never had much skill at managing it. He feels he owes some explanation, so says briskly, "We've had an agent under deep cover in South America, this last six months. We thought he might have been killed, earlier this week, but I've been told he's made contact."

She smiles, sharp but genuine. "Well, that's good news. My best wishes to your agent."

"Thank you," he says.

"Of course I'm sure you'll advise us of anything we need to know," she adds keenly. 

"Of course," he says smoothly. "When we know. We haven't had much by way of reports in the last few months." Notes have been issued with some regularity but in fact they haven't had a full verbal report in two months, eighteen days, and four hours. Not that Harry is counting the time since he last heard Eggsy's voice, naturally.

"A celebration, then," she says. She looks around and an urbane black-clad waiter materialises to take her order of brandies. "And I'll let you go back to your people."

***

The car back to the shop takes an age and by the time he's there Harry has stinging half-crescents in both palms. The window is dim, a polite notice in the door telling customers that they are shut due to family emergency. Merlin opens the door and Harry is extremely grateful to him for making the trip from HQ to brief him here personally because he takes one look at Harry's face, says, "Hell, Harry," in tones of slightly disgusted reassurance, and opens his arms.

That bit of nonsense safely concluded and never to be mentioned again, Harry is swiftly installed on the couch in fitting room one with a restorative cup of tea and Merlin fiddling with the tablet beside him.

"Here's the pick-up call," Merlin says. "Just on 58 minutes ago, now."

And the next voice he hears is Eggsy's, so beloved and much-missed, beautiful even wobbly with exhaustion and crackling through a poor phone line and the tablet speakers, and Harry has to lean forward, rest his elbows on his knees and clasp his hands behind his neck, the nearest to supplication he will come.

 _Yeah,_ Eggsy on the phone says, _I've got some shoes I wanna send in for repair. Oxfords, not brogues. The Galahad style_. The operative on the other end responds professionally, with a hint of warmth; of course the whole organisation has been aware of Eggsy's op going tits up. _Of course, Sir, and we're happy for your continued custom. What kind of repair is needed?_ Eggsy says, _just minor. They're still okay for walking around_ \- some damage then, some hurts, but walking wounded, and Harry lets out a breath. The conversation continues; Eggsy gives an approximation of his current location and after some minutes to review the logistics the operative tells him an address, ostensibly where he ought to send his shoes, really the nearest point they can send a jet to pick him up, gives him the number of days the repair will take for the time he should be there to meet it. She closes out by asking whether that will be everything and Harry closes his eyes when Eggsy says, _yeah, just tell Arthur - say hi to Arthur for me_.

"The jet is on its way to the extraction point now," Merlin says into the heavy silence that follows. "It's only a few hours. He's already got himself out of Colombia, away from what’s left of the cartel, if there were any reason to believe they care what's happened to one foreign drug dealer with the mess they're in now. There's no reason he shouldn't be fine, Harry, and back here with you by morning."

"Yes, well," Harry says. "Let's hope you haven't just jinxed it."

Merlin rests a hand on his shoulder, warm and understanding. Harry feels momentarily rather callous; Merlin has made quite a favourite out of Eggsy himself, a particular bond between them ever since the events of V-Day, and he pats Merlin's hand clumsily. Merlin says, "Let me get you a hobnob for that tea."

Harry smiles weakly, feeling a little ill. "Better make it the packet."

***

Merlin tries to send him home on the basis he's likely to be utterly useless all afternoon. Harry refuses, unwilling to entertain the thought of spending that time alone; it's curious, that the anxiety was easier to bear with Eggsy ensconced in the long-term, full-time danger of deep cover than it is with him nearly home and safe. Instead he travels back to HQ on the shuttle and settles in for an afternoon of soothing busywork, nothing he can bugger up too badly but needing just enough attention to stop him being consciously aware of fretting.

He'd been dismayed, when he took on the role of Arthur, to find that in fact Kingsman generated every bit as much tedious bureaucracy and paperwork as a government intelligence organisation, such things being carefully kept out of the slatternly hands of agents, but today he's relieved to have as many documents requiring straightforward review and sign-off as his horribly efficient PA Samia leaps on the opportunity to shove in front of him. At least being in his office is pleasant, the soft greens and blues and dark woods recalling the grand buildings of his childhood, and his own things about him, paintings and a little light taxidermy on the walls.

Merlin lets himself quietly into his office at 1930, going straight to the drinks cabinet and helping himself to Harry's best Scotch. "Oi," Harry says halfheartedly. He has one of those wretched executive toys on his desk, a joke gift from one of the retired agents who serves as an advisor alongside other lucrative sinecures, and for the last half an hour he's been watching the balls clap into one another, a bashed-up tape cassette of The Clash playing on low on the old stereo in the corner of his office, and trying not to think about very much at all. "At least pour me one, if you will insist on charging in and nicking my good booze."

"I do insist," Merlin says, although Harry gets his drink anyway. "The jet's fine. Should be right on time to pick the lad up." He brings up the progress on the office widescreen but Harry doesn't even bother to nod; he knows that, of course. The jet has been on his screen blinking its way from the Kingsman hangar in Texas to Venezuela for several hours now and is well into its descent to the pick up point. This is the most difficult time. If someone had followed Eggsy, a random street fight, even transport difficulties making him take longer than the jet can afford to wait before being noticed by the authorities… he can't relax until Eggsy is safely on the plane, preferably until he can open up the video conference terminal and see him for the first time in six months.

The plane lands. Merlin catches Harry's eye, awkward, looks away. Harry cares about all the agents, of course; they're all close colleagues, sharing experiences nobody else could have, some of them - the less sociopathic ones - he would even consider friends, and he now feels the weight of responsibility of being the one to point them at their targets. He would do this vigil for any agent in Eggsy's situation. It's still different.

The plane stays down for five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Merlin refills their glasses silently.

Takeoff. Merlin raps out, "Fuck," voice turning uncharacteristically harsh on the plosive. Harry keeps watching the display.

It only takes another few moments to come up. _Galahad retrieved. Transmission in fifteen minutes._

He closes his eyes. He's not sure he's ever felt like this in his life: this simple, overwhelming joy. How strange it is, for the mere hint of another person mean so very much.

He stands up and they shake hands, as if they have anything to congratulate one another for when Eggsy has been clever and quick and preserved his own life. Merlin is smiling and he grasps Harry's hand in both of his; his eyes look suspiciously shiny. "Do pull yourself together," Harry says.

The next fifteen minutes rather drag on, with a sensation that Harry hasn't experienced since he was last in the field himself: unnatural awareness of his environment inside and outside his own body and yet dissociation, emotions and anything outside the narrow focus of what must happen in the next minute and the one after that numbed as if behind a sheet of tissue paper.

As the fifteen minutes draws to an end he finds he's already up, moving closer to the screen where the transmission will appear. Merlin's tablet beeps, the screen flares into life and there is -

Eggsy. Looking tired, pale even on the screen, hair greasy and falling in his face. His posture is off, even on the head and shoulders view of the screen - back injury? No, shoulder. He has a healing scrape on one cheekbone, a cut on his lower lip, a bruise on his chin. Harry takes it all in within the first evaluating glance and then he's free to focus on the look on Eggsy's face as they clap eyes on one another for the first time in months.

"Galahad," Harry says, and if his tones are rather too caressing for a professional contact he thinks under the circumstances he can be forgiven. 

"All right, Arthur," Eggsy says. He swallows visibly, leaning forward, and then a smile breaks out on his face, tremulous at first but broadening, his face lighting up and his eyes shining, and Harry is helpless not to smile back until they're just grinning at each other like a pair of bloody fools.

"That is quite enough of that," Merlin says acidly, elbowing Harry out of the way. Eggsy jolts as if he can reach out and follow him off screen and Merlin relents and lets Harry squash back in front of the camera beside him. "Nice to see you, Galahad. Any chance of a report? Injuries?"

"I'm fine," Eggsy says, technically to Merlin but his gaze has locked back on Harry.

"Excuse me," says someone in the background, American-accented, polite but firm, and a young man appears next to Eggsy on the screen. "Andy Peirce, Sir, medical. Galahad sustained a dislocated shoulder, no emergency issues but I'm not too happy with the field reduction. Plus various other minor scratches but no signs of infection. My report will be with medical wing in British HQ for landing."

"Thank you, Dr Peirce," Harry says and the man gives a curt nod and withdraws. "That's 'fine', is it, Galahad?"

"You should see the other blokes," Eggsy says.

"Anything on the cartel we need to know about now?" Merlin says, businesslike.

Eggsy rubs a hand across his eyes; the question visibly drains him, brings a shadow to his eyes and a furrow to his brow. His hand and forearm are littered with small cuts. "No. Nothing urgent. Their HQ is fucked. I can do an assessment of how they're likely to regroup no problem, but..." He shrugs; Harry notices with some concern that he's already instinctively isolating his injured shoulder. It happened during the escape three days ago, then, most likely, and his mind puts it all together and unravels a narrative for him automatically: a fight at the base, going out of the window, an explosion. Eggsy surveying the damage, deciding his op was over, and starting the journey home, protecting himself and Kingsman by getting away from the scene of the crime before calling for help.

"But another few months and we would have had enough information to take out their whole global system, not just damage the head," Merlin says grimly. "Not your fault, son."

"Yeah, well," Eggsy says. "Hey, Mum and Daisy-"

"They're well," Harry reassures him. Agents aren't in a position to make demands, really, when it comes to their missions, but keeping an eye on Eggsy's family had been a condition of taking the long-term job he'd been happy to agree. "You can ring them from HQ and see them as soon as you're cleared."

"Okay," Eggsy says, and he visibly settles, starting to droop a little with the immediate requirements met, finally in a place where he can relax and start to remember himself. "Okay, that's good. Thanks, Harry," and that last is deep, intimate, letting out the coy smile that would usually be extremely welcome but under present conditions signals to Harry just how close to exhaustion his boy is.

"And I think that means we're quite finished," Merlin says.

"Well-" Harry says, trying to grasp some excuse that would let him keep the transmission open, discovering he's not quite ready yet to part even from so unsatisfactory a connection as this.

Merlin simply says over him, "Try to get some rest, Galahad. We're looking forward to seeing you back here."

Eggsy waves and Harry suppresses a disappointed sigh as the transmission shuts down. It's been six months: eight and a half hours to landing is no great shakes. "Shall we have another drink?" he says.

"We shall finish the bottle."

***

He snatches some sleep in his private quarters, more dozing in shifts than genuine rest. Regular sleeping habits are a pleasing discovery his body has made now he’s rarely in the field but one broken night won’t do any harm. He wakes several times reaching for his tablet, convinced he’s been jolted out of sleep by beeping, by a message about Eggsy, but each time the aeroplane is tracking steadily and predictably across the ocean, if not making respectable time.

They’re due to land just before five in the morning. Merlin knocks on the door at quarter past four, with bacon sandwiches from the tech unit hotplates which are certainly not regulation and ought not really be allowed. They’re not very good sandwiches - Merlin is a genius with many things, cooking not included - but the thought is kind so Harry eats them.

“He’s probably going to need a bit of time to settle back in,” Merlin says at one point.

“It had occurred to me,” Harry says flatly. Merlin is a good friend, a great one on most days, and the most valued and trusted colleague Harry has, but he's not a complete idiot, even where Eggsy is concerned.

“Aye, well,” Merlin says vaguely. He stands up, brushing crumbs onto Harry’s rug. “Shall we make our way down?”

The familiar corridors of Kingsman HQ are entirely silent at this hour and their shoes echo down the corridor. Harry doesn't speak, shoulders stiff with anticipation and readiness. Eggsy is nearly here. As ready as he is to see Eggsy again, be able to touch him and talk with him, he's also looking forward with pleasure to how Eggsy will surprise him, after so long apart, in the crucible of deep cover. He never ceases to be delighted with how Eggsy approaches a challenge, the things he learns about him with every new mission, the things he sees Eggsy learn about himself; watching Eggsy become the man Harry saw the potential for him to be has been one of the great joys of Harry's life.

The shed is cavernous, coldly lit and functional as always. The walk to the drop off point takes several minutes. It's ready for the jet's approach, the door already retracted at the point that runway becomes hangar, with the early promise of flooding light as the sun starts to rise.

Harry can't help but stand facing it, waiting. Merlin, face tranquil, intones, "It is the east, and Juliet-"

"Yes, all right," Harry snaps. 

Merlin smirks, then looks down at his tablet and becomes serious. "They've touched down. Taxiing in shortly."

"Thank you," Harry says faintly. For a moment his vision swims, taking him unpleasantly back to the months spent recovering from a bullet wound to the head, and then he feels a firm circling grip on his wrist, there and gone just long enough to steady him. When he looks around again the grounds staff have gathered at a respectful distance and lights have flared along the internal run.

They hear it before they see it, the steady rumbling despite the soundproofing of the hangar. And then the plane is there, wheeling smoothly down the lane, and Harry feels the most powerful relief he's ever known sweep over him with an almost physical force.

The plane draws to a stop, some distance away, and the door opens. Harry puts his hands in his pockets so he can dig his nails into his thighs.

A figure descends, starts coming in their direction, and even at this distance Harry marks his walk, that slight hint of a swagger he's never been able to train out of Eggsy. He's trailed at a discreet distance by a young man; the American medic, presumably.

Eggsy puts a hand up when he notices them; Harry returns it, and doesn't think he's imagining it when Eggsy speeds up. And then with a nudge from Merlin, he's walking to meet him.

The first instant feels pure. They may never be as happy to see each other again as at this moment. 

At the touch of Eggsy's hand in his, Harry's eyes slide shut, an entirely involuntary response to the gratitude and pleasure he feels. Eggsy's grip is damp and far, far too tight, desperate; electric; wonderful.

"Bloody well done," he says softly and Eggsy smiles tremblingly back.

"It's good to be back," he says hoarsely. "It's so fucking good to see you."

"And you, my boy," Harry says. Eggsy looks needy and hungry, gaze raking Harry gratifyingly, and he rubs his thumb over the soft arch of Eggsy's hand, promising.

(Within the finer feelings is the familiar thought: Christ, but Eggsy is good looking. Harry is capable of forgetting quite the ridiculous extent of it over the course of a day, never mind months, and he's filled with the same primal ungentlemanly pride he always is when he remembers that this exceptional creature is coming to _his_ bed tonight.)

"Come," he says, gestures back to the waiting niche where Merlin still stands. He nods back to the young medic, dismissing him, and puts a proprietary hand at the small of Eggsy's back, that delicious area just above the curve of his arse. Eggsy sways into him as they walk, falling as naturally into step as if they're strolling to breakfast never having parted, and Harry's heart hammers in his chest.

"Still alive then, Galahad," Merlin says, clearly aiming for arch, but he's smiling almost as broadly as Harry himself and it's clear how pleased he is to see Eggsy again. 

"Merlin, mate," Eggsy says and goes in for one of those handclapping embraces. "Nice to see you too, bellend."

Merlin puts his hand on Eggsy's shoulder, sets him back from them deliberately and tuts. "I gave you such lovely things, and here you are coming back with the clothes you stand up in. Agents, you think tech grows on the bloody trees."

It's the sort of normal comforting grumbling the agents like to hear and Eggsy relaxes happily into it, giving Harry the chance to assess him. Eggsy is, clearly, injured; shadowed and putting a brave face on the changes the last six months have wrought. But he is whole and at least in this moment, back on British soil, happy, and in Harry's eyes beautiful with it. His fingers itch and ache for Eggsy's skin, to have that vibrancy under his hands once again.

He gives Merlin a quick nod. "It's the San for you, lad," Merlin says, clapping Eggsy on the back. "We'll be kind to you and let you get a bit of kip. Debriefing this afternoon."

"Great," Eggsy says. He glances at Harry.

"I'll escort you to medical," Harry says neutrally, mindful of the staff still lingering around the plane, giving Eggsy the proud smiles due to a prodigal son. And finally -

Now, now is their real reunion, in a lift between the hangar and the plush clinic suite where Eggsy will spend the next day or two, and oh, it's lovely. Galahad and Arthur greeted each other with a firm handshake; Eggsy and Harry meet each other in a fierce embrace as soon as the doors are closed, overcome, hugging tightly as if they could fit one inside the other, breaking for only enough distance for their mouths to meet. Harry strokes Eggsy's dear face and luxuriates in the feeling of kissing him again after such long absence, reminding himself of how Eggsy likes to be touched, that he makes pleased sounds with one hand cupping the back of his neck and another on his arse while he hooks his own arms around Harry’s neck, that he opens for Harry's teeth very gentle on his lower lip like so, enjoys Harry's tongue playing with his like that.

"Darling," he murmurs and Eggsy flinches back, returns for another lingering close-mouthed kiss, draws away. Harry feels the loss immediately but Eggsy lets Harry take his hand and after so much time apart it's quite enough. The hour is sufficiently small for Harry to keep holding his hand through the corridors to the medical wing, feeling almost overflowing with unbearable tenderness; Eggsy sticks closely beside him once more, their hips brushing, which Harry has no complaints about at all.

The recovery rooms are a part of the wing set up to be halfway between the clinical ward and the personal suite set aside for each knight: spacious, comfortable and properly decorated but with cupboards of medical supplies and discreet handrails for wobbly agents.

Eggsy sits on the double bed, newly made up with burgundy linens, bounces a bit and then topples over as if in slow motion. Harry watches him fondly, greedily, gaze running him over and over in case anything was forgotten, or there’s anything new to be noticed, catalogued, understood. "There will be some food along shortly and a check-up, then you can get some sleep," he says; of course Eggsy is perfectly familiar with all that but he thinks a reminder of routine, of his well-worn place here, might be helpful.

"Yeah," Eggsy says. "God, I'm looking forward to a curry. What're you waiting for, a fucking invitation?"

So Harry goes to him, sits on the bed and lets Eggsy do what he will, which turns out to be lying his head in Harry's lap and curling the rest of himself as much around the rest of Harry as he can. Harry strokes his hair slowly and watches tension go out of the stocky line of his body in degrees.

"Do you know what happened?" Eggsy says. 

Harry feels his lips twist, too grim to be called a smirk. "It was the fucking CIA, Eggsy."

Eggsy nods. His hand on Harry's hip twitches, forms a fist, relaxes. "Bastards. Six fucking months I'll never get back. I hope you gave them hell."

Kingsman had attributed the explosion very quickly and Harry had spoken to the head of the CIA still in that first terrible, furious twilight of Eggsy's likely death. "Something like that, yes."

They’re interrupted then by an unobtrusive knock. Harry opens the door to a trolley of food and a doctor; the one he wheels inside and the other follows. It’s nearly seven and he uncovers an array of breakfast food, always in the medical wing cooked freshly from local ingredients here in the Surrey countryside, to tempt the convalescent. 

When he looks up to check what Eggsy would like, he finds him looking at the trolley with distaste. “Toast?” he says, instead of the Full English he’d been about to offer. A cooked breakfast can be a bit much on a delicate stomach, especially when one is out of the habit. 

Eggsy nods and he busies himself with butter and jam. Eggsy prefers toast hot with the butter melting onto it, is the thing, and even the wonders of the medical wing kitchen aren’t quite up to the challenge of keeping toast from cooling as it’s brought around the rooms. On the bed, Dr Llewelyn is giving Eggsy the usual cursory examination, a back-up to the one he had on the plane; just enough to ascertain that if they let an agent have a sleep, he's unlikely to die in it. 

“Well, the report from Peirce seems in line; that shoulder is going to need some rehabbing,” she says when she’s finished. “We’ll need to do a proper assessment, possibly an MRI, and design a physical therapy approach. I’m a bit concerned about your iron and vitamin levels but nothing that shouldn’t right itself with the standard post-mission prescription.” That’s rest, plenty of good nutritious meals, a bit of time lying under a tree and watching the clouds.

“When can I go back in the field?” Eggsy says, what they all say. Harry was the same when he was young and fresh.

She looks a bit doubtful. She glances at Harry before she answers; he keeps his face blank, doesn’t give her anything. It’s a difficult line to walk for the medical staff, when their patient’s lover is also his boss. She says, “We’ll have to see about the shoulder, Galahad. You need the full range of motion back with no pain, and strengthening to reduce the risk of future dislocations. Weeks, I’d say. Not days, not months.”

“The minimum rest time after a deep cover mission is a month,” Harry says to him. “Barring absolute emergency. The Psych team will tell you that.” He hands Eggsy a plate with two rounds of toast, made from the cheap white bread Eggsy secretly loves, butter and strawberry jam spread neatly to the edges.

“Thanks,” Eggsy says to the doctor and Harry echoes it, sees her politely to the door. There’s more people in the halls than there were half an hour ago, the complex waking up, getting to work. He got very little done yesterday; his schedule and papers for the day will already be on his desk.

“Can you stay with me?” Eggsy asks. Harry looks up, meets his gaze in the mirror, breathes out.

***

It’s a wonderful snatched morning, everything Harry could have expected and hoped for. He doesn't insult Eggsy by offering time, or asking if he's sure. He reaches for Harry in the curtains-drawn dark of the room, mouth soft and cock hard, and Harry is waiting.

When everything else is stripped away - the suits, the gadgets, the team - all a spy has is his body and his wits. Over the years Harry has known and trusted his body to obey, to answer, and he’s seen Eggsy grow in that same confidence; Eggsy certainly has the wit to match any of them, but his body is where he is truly eloquent. 

They spend the time rediscovering one another, giving themselves to each other over again. Harry pulls Eggsy on top of him immediately, careful of his shoulder and other hurts, taking the greatest pleasure in the simplest touch. It's slow, dreamlike, communicating without words; the way Eggsy sighs into his mouth, the way he wraps the covers around them both, presses his erection to Harry's, moves voluptuously against the full planes of Harry's body as if wanting to feel all of him together: it all tells him the happiness of physical reunion is entirely shared. Eggsy whispers Harry’s name into his mouth as he comes, and this time Eggsy doesn’t flinch at Harry’s low, “Darling,” as he has his own climax.

Their habit has always been to talk idly after fucking, going back to the earliest days when they’d wanted so badly to know one another, but today they stay quiet, Eggsy running his hands contemplatively through Harry’s hair. "You've got a bit more grey," he says, glances his fingers off Harry's temple. "Just here."

"You cheeky little swine," Harry says contentedly. He has to stop himself butting into the touch like a cat.

"We'll talk, yeah?" Eggsy says then, in an undertone, "At home?" and Harry nods. That will have to wait until they're really alone, no blinking surveillance in the corner; sex is one thing but some matters are private.

***

He leaves Eggsy asleep, the strain of the last six months visible in his face. Eggsy is still a young man - certainly compared to Harry - and stunningly, classically handsome, but a couple of years shy of thirty the first lines are promising on his forehead, at the corners of his eyes. Harry knots his tie by feel, an expansively ostentatious full Windsor for today, standing over Eggsy and taking in the sight at his leisure. He’s not a man for regrets - with the life he’s led, it'd take up too much of his free time - but even if he were he doesn’t think he would change a moment of the life that’s led them to this point.

He’s at his desk by half nine and burns through the first three items on his to-do list in a flurry of cheerful efficiency. Merlin comes in at eleven for his daily report, followed swiftly by Samia with filter coffees and another set of papers.

“Priorities?” Harry says, giving them a desultory flick through. Obviously Eggsy's operation is the main action for today.

“Galahad’s debriefing,” Merlin says. “Fifteen oh hundred sharp. I’ll take care of it personally, Conroy will sit in from the Psych team.”

“I was thinking I might-” Harry starts.

“No fucking chance,” Merlin says.

Harry raises an eyebrow. “What was that?”

“Oh, sorry,” Merlin says levelly. “No fucking chance, Sir.”

Harry sits back. Merlin is right, if somewhat brutally expressed. He couldn’t have done otherwise than wait for Eggsy last night, be with him this morning, but it’s just possible it’s somewhat clouding his judgement. Startling really, the change it can make to a man to get outrageously bedded after an anxious dry spell. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll pop in to the observation room later, then. See how you're getting on."

“As you wish,” Merlin says, with the clear insinuation that Harry is a blithering idiot making a stupid decision, but that’s nothing new.

He gets a report from medical at half past one and reads it over a respectable roast beef and horseradish sandwich and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. Eggsy’s shoulder doesn’t have any nerve damage but there’s some swelling and the soft tissue is going to need time to recover. Thankfully, no surgery will be required. He’s been seen by the physio and shown the exercises he’ll need to do daily to heal, restore stability and strengthen it. They suggest three weeks for rehabilitation and then at least a month back on his usual regime before he’s sent on another mission.

Unsaid in the medical reporting is the strengths and skills of each agent: one who relies more on brute force or weapons work might be ready to go back earlier. Eggsy’s particular gifts in a fight rely on speed and agility, and his marksmanship requires steady hands and strength through the upper body for the recoil. Sending him into the field with anything less than complete flexibility and command of his body could jeopardise any mission he was sent on, not to say Eggsy himself.

So, nearly two months at least of Eggsy in London: at home, knocking round HQ. Harry finds the idea quite pleasant but Eggsy likely wasn’t too happy.

At two there’s a soft knock on the door. Eggsy sticks his head round and Harry waves him in, smiling involuntarily. Eggsy drops into the chair opposite Harry’s desk, dressed casually in jeans, trainers, and hoodie; a bit irregular, for an agent at HQ, but not unknown and the gossip chain will have it everywhere soon enough that Eggsy is back and under the tender mercies of medical.

“Sleep well?” Harry says. He bites back the endearment that comes naturally to the end of the sentence. It would be nice to pretend he has some control, here in his own office. 

“Yeah, not bad,” Eggsy says. He reaches onto the desk and checks Harry’s crisp packet, picking it up when he discovers some still inside.

“By all means, help yourself,” Harry says.

“I shouldn’t really,” Eggsy says, although he’s already finished them and is straightening the packet. He tips his head back - Harry’s gaze drawn at once to his defined jawline and pale throat - and funnels the crumbs into his mouth, tongue peeking out to lick up any strays. “I had lunch in the canteen.”

“Dining room,” Harry says, a battle he’s been waging for years and has no hope of ever winning. “Good. It could be a long afternoon, you know. Deep cover debriefings aren’t like what you’re used to, Eggsy. It’ll probably be a few sessions before Merlin is content. Weeks before Analysis and Research are finished processing the information and ready to present proposals for follow up work.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eggsy says, looking discomfited. “I don’t have to stay though, do I, here on base? Not through all that.”

“No,” Harry says. And then, because he doesn’t like to lie to Eggsy if he doesn’t have to, “I hope not.” 

Eggsy scowls and Harry’s fingers twitch with wanting to reach out. He doesn’t, but he sees Eggsy’s eyes flick down to the tiny movement and after a moment his face smoothes out. 

“I saw Rox at lunch,” Eggsy says. “Bloody jumped on me in the queue. I actually thought she might cry at one point. She said she’d come straight back off holiday when she heard about the job going arse over tit. Not sure I’d come home from Thailand to say hi to her four whole days earlier.”

“Well, yes," Harry says carefully. Now he thinks about it - had Eggsy even realised, how it had looked here, half a world away? “She thought you were probably dead,” he clarifies. “We all did. It seemed the most likely outcome of an explosion in a place you were known to be.”

Eggsy looks stricken, for a moment; then Harry can almost see the young man he’d met, with his baseball cap and bloody awful shoes and his wounded bravado in a Kennington pub. He says carelessly, “Must have been weird.” Safe, of course, in his confidence in the depth of Harry's feelings for him. Perhaps a bit smug, Harry's delay in revealing himself alive after being shot by Valentine long-forgiven, never forgotten.

“Oh, mildly. A couple of drinks too many at my desk and I had to be put to bed by Merlin, although not until after he'd sent himself my approval for an increase of several million pounds on his R&D budget.”

It's the truth. Or at least a truth, the lightest part of a dark day. It oughtn’t matter now anyway; Eggsy is here and safe.

“You did seem happy to see me,” Eggsy says, his eyes gleaming, watching Harry with a look in his eyes starting to become challenge.

It’s a poor idea, in the office, just before Eggsy undergoes what will be a gruelling afternoon, but Harry thinks _sod it_ , both more unnerved by the memory of those long days of not knowing than he’d like and uneasy at seeing Eggsy off balance. “I was,” he says. He stands up slowly and walks at a measured pace round his desk. Eggsy in the visitor's chair swings to meet him, his gaze becoming intent, his knees parting instinctively to let Harry walk straight up and kneel between. “Shall I show you how much?”

***

He sends Eggsy off and returns to his work after a blowjob and five hasty, lovely minutes cuddled together on the office sofa afterwards, Eggsy pulling Harry's shirt out from his trousers to slide his hands underneath onto Harry's back, skin-hungry. He hopes Eggsy won't be too obviously post-coital in the debriefing, although going by the watchful tension that had returned to the way he held himself by the time he was on his way out the door, Harry doesn't have much to worry about there.

By four he's admitted to himself that his attention is far away from the admirable but droning detail of Gareth's latest mission research and is on his way down to the debriefing room.

In many ways it's no different from any of the other richly decorated spaces that dot any Kingsman premises for employees' use: a choice of soft chairs or desk, writing supplies left out waiting and computer equipment and connections tidily away in a cupboard, refreshments on a sideboard replenished regularly. However, there are some key differences. The room used for more sensitive debriefs is wired for video and sound from every possible angle, the door locks automatically from the outside, and the gilt-framed mirror above the mantelpiece is two-way.

Harry lets himself quietly into the observation room and pours a coffee from the waiting carafe before stepping up to the mirror. Merlin is listening intently, tapping a stylus against his clipboard tablet, a thoughtful look in his face. Eggsy is sitting directly opposite from him, side on to Harry, curled into an armchair; a mug is balanced precariously on one arm, and on the other he's flipping through a spiral bound copy of all the notes and reports he'd managed to get out to them during the assignment. Conroy, a wiry, slightly ferrety looking man, is sitting off to the side, making occasional notes, and McIlroy, one of their whipsmart if overly educated young researchers, an arms length behind him, both clearly in Eggsy's line of sight. Harry flips the switch to turn on the audio feed into the obs room and takes a seat himself.

"... routes into London haven't been clear," Merlin is saying as the audio fuzzes to life. "We estimated several million a month of cocaine alone, I think." He inclines his head back slightly and McIlroy interjects softly, "That's right, Sir. Cocaine with an average street value of 2.25 million per month September to December last year."

Eggsy is shaking his head. "Nah, it wasn't that much. Some of it must be coming from somewhere else. Figures I saw for this year were at a million a month, maybe a bit over. They were getting more into the psychotropics market, that was getting up to half a million quid by last month and about the same to Berlin." He leafs through the field notes again, jots something on them. "Here, yeah? Paragraph 47. I mentioned it when I met up with Gawain in April, I'd just seen the new dockets."

"Ah yes," Merlin says, flicking back a through pages in his own copy. "Paragraph 47. Here we are. Gawain reported, 'Galahad provided new intelligence blah blah, expanding into recently into a range of psychoactive substances on and on'... and then what does he say, Galahad?"

There's a silence. Eggsy rubs his hands over his face. Conroy makes a note.

"Well?"

Eggsy says wearily, "'Galahad was unwilling to provide a source within the organisation for this intelligence.'"

"McIlroy!" Merlin says. "You've been scratching away over there. Tell me, how many specific sources has Galahad given so far today?"

"Er," she says and Harry leans forward. Eggsy and Roxy are quite the favourites with the younger set in the Kingsman organisation, breaking the tedious mold as they do. She's clearly unwilling to say.

"Spit it out!"

"None," she says. 

"You do understand the purpose of a debrief, I suppose, Galahad?" Merlin says. "Because it's not, in case you were wondering, for the good of my health. You were an unknown quantity to these people and you were turning out their deepest secrets after six weeks. Why?"

"Maybe I'm good at my job," Eggsy says sullenly. Harry doesn't like his expression; he touches his glasses, zooms in to Eggsy's face. There's a tinge of high colour on his cheeks, sweat starting to darken his hairline.

"I'm not questioning that," Merlin says. He's seen it too: he's leaning forward, frowning, intent on Eggsy. "Who was talking to you?"

Eggsy glances at the mirror and Harry starts back instinctively, although he knows Eggsy can't see him; shouldn't really have any reason to think he would be there.

"Galahad. Oi, Galahad. Look at me."

"I need a break," Eggsy says, only just audible through Harry's speaker. 

Merlin sits back slowly, a considering look on his face. "Very well. Take ten minutes. Conroy, a word, please?"

Eggsy sits limply, drops his head back onto the cushion and breathes out deeply, his eyes closed not in comfort or rest but in strain. Harry moves closer to his own side of the mirror and studies him, wondering whether it would help or make it worse if Harry were to go to him. Eggsy hasn't always been the most articulate as a reporter and in the early days had needed some guidance as to how best to organise and present his (unerringly accurate and insightful) observations and conclusions for their purposes. He's never been skittish before.

"He knows you're there," Merlin says. Harry touches his glasses again, until they sharpen Merlin's reflection in the doorway, and looks at him from there, Eggsy fading into a blur in the other room. 

"He can't possibly," he says. "Anyway, I've only been here five minutes."

"He's assuming, then," Merlin says flatly. "His behaviour is off."

"No more than any other agent after six months in deep cover," Harry counters.

"Do you think not? You shouldn't have fucked him, Harry." Merlin takes his own specs off and rubs at the dent on the bridge of his nose where they rest. 

"That advice is several years too late."

"Don't be a smartarse, you know damn well I mean this morning. He's in a right state."

In the debrief room, Eggsy is stretching out against a wall, testing his injured shoulder gingerly. McIlroy offers him a glass of water and a kind smile. Eggsy glances at the mirror again, shakes his head at both.

"Time's up," Harry says, making a show of checking his watch.

Merlin glares at him, but he leaves and a minute later he's re-entering the debrief room, nodding at McIlroy's gesture to the tea tray. He sits back down and Eggsy trails after with a disconsolate look, drops inelegantly into his own armchair and burrows into the corner.

"Ready?" Merlin says with fake solicitousness. Eggsy jerks something that could be a nod. "Good. Who was talking to you?"

"Oh, you are doing my head in," Eggsy complains. "People just told me stuff, yeah? The cover was solid, they thought it was good for business. It's my natural charm."

"You're not that charming. Try again."

Eggsy's face turns to stone for a long minute, Merlin steadfast opposite him. "I was reading Metez's papers," Eggsy finally says. "He was the second, he had everything."

"Good. Where did you get them?"

"Merlin..."

"Where?"

"Juliana let me in to their room," Eggsy says. "All right? Fucking hell. I was shagging his bird in his bed and I went through his stuff when she was asleep. Two, three times a week."

He delivers it straight to the mirror; he looks drained, shaking. Harry puts a hand up to him, the still-zoomed view so clear he's momentarily surprised not to touch skin. It's upsetting news: not because he cares about a relationship undertaken in the line of duty, but because of how badly frightened Eggsy seems to be by the thought he might.

"She had access to his phone, email?" Merlin says matter-of-factly. He's tapping away again, a faintly satisfied smile on his face. "No reason to believe he was feeding her bad intel?"

"That's your fucking question?" Eggsy says, half turning between them, although whether the disgust on his face is for Merlin or himself, Harry isn't entirely sure. "Whether it was bad info?"

"Whatever gets the job done, Galahad," Merlin says. Eggsy looks at the mirror again. Harry wonders what he's thinking about the reflection he sees there. It makes Harry himself want nothing more than to take Eggsy in his arms, soothe his head against Harry's shoulder, remind him that Harry is exceptionally difficult to get rid of. "Eggsy," Merlin says gently and Eggsy swings back around to him, shocked. "Nobody here cares where you stick your dick, or when, or how. Which usually is to your vast good fortune."

He's the first one to look at the mirror this time and Eggsy follows his gaze, looks beseechingly into what would be Harry's eyes, if he were standing a foot to the left. 

"Can I have a break," Eggsy says. 

"No, you've just had one," Merlin says heartlessly. "Do you need your painkillers? McIlroy, if you could - and another water for him, and a biscuit, line his stomach - thank you. This woman then, Juliana. She had good access, good intel?"

"Yeah," Eggsy says. He accepts everything McIlroy hands him, docile and lethargic, puts the pills in his mouth and knocks them back with the water, nibbles a bourbon (McIlroy has a slight crush on the brave Galahad, the back of Harry's brain notes; she'd given Merlin a rich tea). "He didn't bother hiding anything from her, he didn't think she'd do nothing. He was - she was afraid of him."

Harry watches him thoughtfully. He'd been caught in a knife fight in his late twenties, shortly after becoming Galahad; the bulletproof fabric had been in its early stages then and he'd merely sustained a serious wound from what should have been a killing blow. He'd cut it open himself a couple of days later, still in the field, let the pus drain out, and been surprised when the underlying infection had turned to septicaemia and nearly killed him a week later, back at base. Eggsy looks a bit like that wound had felt.

Now with a confirmed source, Merlin has taken Eggsy back to the beginning of the mission and is guiding him through the facts: names, numbers, places, dates. Eggsy looks on surer ground and is reeling them off almost as quickly as McIlroy can take notes. Harry tunes it out - part of the appeal of Arthur being the ability to leave the boring detail to other people - and sits back down, watching Eggsy's face.

He comes back to the conversation abruptly when he hears Eggsy, in full flow, say, "- 'cause they were worried about the Americans."

Merlin looks up slowly from his tablet. "Say what, lad?"

"Yeah, Montoya had some bloke up there he was paying off told him they were sniffing around, getting onto the trade in the Midwest."

Merlin is flipping through the field notes again. "When was this? It's not in here. Did you mention it?"

"A month ago," Eggsy says and Harry can see the realisation collapse in on him. "Shit. Oh, shit, they were... a month ago, the cartel were hearing the Americans were upset. I don't think - fuck. I didn't-"

Merlin wipes his hand across his mouth. Behind him McIlroy is chewing on her pen, her shoulders hunching. "You didn't report it," he says.

Eggsy doesn't answer. Harry is up again, leaning against the glass to the point he's actually distantly concerned for its structural integrity.

"And a few weeks later the CIA blew the whole thing to fuck." 

Eggsy closes his eyes. Merlin nods, looks down at his tablet, scoffs a moment before he controls it.

"Right," he says. "Well then. I think you've entertained us all enough for today, Galahad." He gestures sharply at McIlroy and Conroy and they file out silently. Harry watches him look back at Eggsy, looking small and young, staring blankly at the wall. Merlin puts his hand on Eggsy's shoulder, says more gently, "Stay here," and Harry stands to wait for him in the obs room.

"This is a problem," Merlin says, shutting the door behind him.

"Why?" Harry says. "A month ago it would have been a problem. We could have solved it with the Americans then. Today it's already over and done with."

Merlin looks through the glass, to where Eggsy is picking at his fingernails, his face shadowed under a fall of hair. He says quietly, "I know you want to take him home, Harry."

"But?" Harry says expectantly. He puts his hands in his pockets. Merlin is indispensable, of course, and he understands as much as anyone can who's never been in the field. And yet.

"He's hiding something else."

"Are you suggesting it's that he's flipped on us and decided to take over the UK operations of a drugs cartel?"

Merlin purses his lips, which is as good as admitting Harry’s right.

Harry takes his tablet out of his jacket pocket and scrawls a message to his PA. _Have Galahad cleared for standard post-mission leave. Report due in three days_.

***

Harry missed Eggsy terribly, of course, and rejoices in his return: but his feelings are nothing compared to JB’s. The pug barks, whines, slobbers, wags his tail and dances around in a state of frenzied excitement, Eggsy kneeling and laughing and trying to corral the dog into a hug. It’s a heartwarming sight; just what Eggsy needs, rescuing his homecoming from recriminations and anger. Harry is glad he's managed to keep the wretched little bugger alive while Eggsy has been away, although of course Eggsy would have been devastated with anything else and Harry can at least respect the priorities of a one-man dog, however difficult they may make 6.30am walks. He kisses Eggsy firmly over JB's squirming figure, making a silent pact together to deal with the outside world tomorrow, to steal tonight for them.

He still closes the bedroom door firmly against JB, though. There are limits.

“Harry,” Eggsy says when they’re finally alone and private, worlds inside the way he says it, in the eager yearning of his body towards Harry’s as Harry crosses the bedroom as quickly as he can, urgency flaring between them.

They kiss like a fight, hands all over one another’s bodies, grappling with each other’s clothes, grasping to bruise, claim, keep. Past the sheer relief of reunion, out from under Kingsman’s eye, they can be as wild and open together as they like, and Harry - as Eggsy would say - 

Harry is _right fucking up for it._

Eggsy is shameless and open to him, groaning and licking wet and deep into Harry’s mouth. The woman herself doesn’t matter to Harry, but he can’t deny there’s an element of wanting to prove himself again, remind Eggsy of how good they can be together, an old man’s vanity.

They more or less fall onto the bed, still mostly dressed, which won’t do at all. He wrestles Eggsy back upright and strips his t-shirt up and over his head unceremoniously, exposing his body to gaze and lips alike. 

He puts his mouth on Eggsy’s throat, biting down gently. The virtue of this is that it frees Eggsy’s own mouth to outline an impressive plan for how he’s going to fuck Harry into the mattress, while he holds Harry’s head demandingly against him and pulls at his hair in the stinging way Harry likes.

He presses Eggsy back onto the bed, careful of the sore shoulder, and sucks marks down his pale chest, still gorgeously muscled and defined, if not quite as well as when he’s based full-time in London. Harry takes a minute just to appreciate him, letting his lust show openly until Eggsy goes pink and grins brashly. “We doing this or what?” he says and Harry’s gaze is drawn irresistibly down to where Eggsy is palming himself in his jeans, fingers shaping and squeezing his cock greedily through denim.

“Oh, we’re doing it,” Harry assures him and Eggsy rolls them over and attacks the buttons on Harry’s shirt as if they might be plotting world domination, getting them open and pulling the shirt off Harry’s arms. Eggsy puts his nose into the hollow at the base of Harry's throat and inhales deeply, a familiar and favoured move; Harry wonders whether the way he smells to Eggsy has changed in the intervening months, but going by the pleased groan he gets he thinks not.

Shirts off, Harry finds himself even more keen to get to skin, to be naked with Eggsy again, this time back in their own bed. He strips off his own trousers and underwear briskly but takes more time with Eggsy, kissing the tender revealed spots, the knob of his ankle, the back of his knee, the smooth skin of his inner thigh.

Eggsy's dick is pleasingly responsive, already stiff against his belly and darkly pink. Harry rubs the length of it along his cheek the way Eggsy likes, rewarded by the sound of cursing above him, then ducks to take Eggsy's balls in his mouth and suck at them gently. Eggsy raises his legs, cradling Harry between them, wrapping one strong calf over Harry's shoulder and rubbing the scratchy hair against Harry's back. He's distantly aware of Eggsy grabbing at his own cock while Harry ministers to his balls, rubbing a palm over the head, his other hand reaching clumsily for Harry's head.

"You are so fucking- up, up, up," Eggsy says frantically and Harry accedes to the tugs on his hair and draws himself up, deliciously along Eggsy's body, running his hands up Eggsy's flat stomach, over the lean lines of his chest, tickling up his throat until he can catch Eggsy's chin and angle his mouth for another vicious kiss, mapping Eggsy's mouth with his tongue.

"Harry, you know-" Eggsy manages between kisses. "I mean, there's only ever - you know you're-" Harry shushes him, turning the kiss more demanding, concerned by the turn Eggsy's desperation has taken. 

Of course he knows. In this bed, Eggsy is known utterly. He murmurs, "Darling boy," in response, smoothes his tongue across Eggsy's until Eggsy is lost in it once more, his hips rising insistently into Harry's.

"God, I wanna fuck you," Eggsy says in his ear, bites the lobe and licks down the tendon of Harry's throat. His hands slip down so he can grope Harry's arse and Harry arches into the finger he feels press inquisitively against his hole. "Let me in," Eggsy breathes and Harry reaches over to the bedside cabinet, feeling around. The lube is at the back, abandoned half-full; there haven’t been condoms there for a long while and he makes a split second assessment of the risk, decides to go ahead.

He hands the lube to Eggsy and allows himself to be rolled over, underneath the hot bulk of Eggsy's body, spreading his legs around Eggsy's hips when Eggsy kneels up. He may not have the body he had when he was Eggsy’s age - and what he does have is harder to maintain with every bloody passing year - but he has experience and a keen awareness of how to please his lover, so he stretches his arms above his head and pushes back against the headboard, arching and tensing, on display. Eggsy pauses gratifyingly from opening the lube bottle, mouth open, eyes hot, “You fucking - _Harry_ ,” and if they’re suddenly kissing again instead of Eggsy getting his talented stubby fingers in Harry’s arse, Harry thinks he can cope.

He twines his hand with Eggsy’s and guides it down between their bodies as a gentle reminder, careful to leave him with weight on the uninjured side. “Weren’t you rather in the middle of something?” he says, tilts his hips and rubs the softness of his arse against Eggsy’s cock as an added incentive.

“Yeah,” Eggsy says, low. “You want it? Fuck, I wanna get in there, wanna stay all night-”

Harry yells in surprise and pleasure as with one graceful movement Eggsy slithers down and swallows his cock, pushing one finger smoothly deep into his arse at the same time. Harry bites down on his own lip and makes himself sink and relax into the peculiar sensation of the sudden give and then fullness, well-appreciated but always half-forgotten between encounters. He twitches helplessly between the feelings, Eggsy’s wet, wonderful mouth around his cock and finger up his arse, inching in and out, letting Harry get used to it.

“Yes, like that,” he says, “that’s good, you’re so good for me, Eggsy. Give - give me another, get me ready,” and Eggsy moans, delightful shivery sensation around the head of his cock, and puts another finger inside, a third finger rubbing at the rim and Harry’s perineum, intensifying the sensation. It feels fantastic, but even better is the satisfaction at the shared feeling and skill of this reunion, the way Eggsy is sucking him, touching him, telling Harry without anything needing to be said that he remembered Harry, wanted him, thought of him often; giving him the certainty he hadn’t realised he craved that he and Eggsy are still suited, still right together.

He lets it last, luxuriates in it until he feels the need rising for more, to feel Eggsy moving within him. “Eggsy,” he says softly and Eggsy rises above him, gives him another deep kiss that tastes of himself. Harry feels the warm snub head of Eggsy’s cock against him, thick and dripping. The fury of before has burnt out, leaving Harry in a dissolute, pin-sharp place where every tick of the clock feels momentous.

“How are we gonna-” Eggsy says, lingering over Harry’s mouth, clearly wanting the closeness but thinking about his shoulder, unable to sustain holding himself up for the powerful, deep fucking he likes. Harry rolls onto his side and urges Eggsy in with a hand on his flank and Eggsy breathes in shudderingly, bows his head into Harry’s shoulder and kisses it, snugs up behind him with his strong thighs bracketing Harry’s and his groin curved around Harry’s arse. 

“Harry,” he says on a sigh and then his cock is between the cheeks of Harry’s arse and Harry shifts to get the angle right and cries out as Eggsy moves inside for the first time, takes him from behind. Harry enjoys the sensation of getting fucked perfectly well but not usually to the point of coming, needing more direct stimulation. He likes the closeness, the sense of power of feeling a man fall apart inside him, more than the physical act itself. Eggsy is a gift in that respect, always demonstrative and surrendering with his cock in Harry’s arse, the intensity of the pleasure he experiences opening him up to Harry every time he allows Eggsy inside.

But today Harry finds himself responding helplessly to the steady stretch of his hole around Eggsy’s cock, whether because of the long months without being penetrated or simply because of the circumstances. He mumbles, “Yes, Eggsy - slower,” although slower makes Eggsy whimper with need and effort. He clenches deliberately around Eggsy’s cock, where the head is breaching him open, and delights in Eggsy’s near-wail.

He twists around and up until Eggsy understands to prop himself up and lean down to kiss and nuzzle, then guides Eggsy’s hand anchored on his hip to where his cock is already leaking, his balls tight. “Are you-” Eggsy says, eyes big with surprise and pleasure, “fuck, you’re fucking loving this - Harry, Jesus, missed you, missed this, I fucking thought about your arse all the time, thought about you letting me-” his hand goes unco-ordinated and frankly pretty bloody useless around Harry’s dick but Harry can forgive him for the raw look in his eyes and the unsophisticated, messy kiss that follows. 

He gives himself entirely over to the moment then, the gladness and feeling of Eggsy moving inside him, the ragged noises his sweet boy makes buried deep inside Harry’s body as he grinds them to the crest. He covers Eggsy’s hand on his cock with his own, catches the rhythm of Eggsy’s strokes in his arse, his nerves fizzing with the stimulation on prostate and sensitive dick.

He feels Eggsy’s sweaty forehead on his skin, bowed at the nape of the neck, Eggsy’s mumbling his name at the corner of his hearing, his thrusts inside Harry becoming uneven, then he tenses, freezes, and the squeeze of Eggsy’s hand on his cock as he comes pushes Harry over too, orgasm almost like a blow, cleansing and good.

Eggsy says, “God, Harry,” after a while and Harry says his name back, peaceful. He shifts behind him and Harry winces as his cock slips free, the open empty feeling never his favourite. Eggsy hums comfortingly, slides a finger just inside while he cleans Harry’s come from his stomach with neat, wide laps of his tongue, then heaves himself up again, gives Harry a charmingly off-target kiss, and collapses next to him, using what appears to be the last of his strength to pull the cover out and drape it over the pair of them.

They lie comfortably together, entwined. Harry times his breathing to Eggsy’s and allows himself to simply enjoy his company. He dozes, coming gently back to full alertness when he feels Eggsy start to fidget, then pull away, flopping back onto his own pillow and breathing unsteadily. He doesn’t settle for several minutes and Harry wonders if he should speak, considers and discards several openers.

"I got homesick the first couple of weeks," Eggsy says then, into the dark. His hushed tones would be suitable for church and Harry pays close attention. "And every bad day I'd get pissed right off with you, like you'd sent me away and now I was in this shithole and it was all your fault. Resented you a bit." Harry feels fingers brush his on the mattress, seeking, tentative with apology. He turns his palm, letting Eggsy take his hand. "Stupid, innit? It's my job."

"No more stupid than my feeling guilty for giving you the mission," Harry admits. Eggsy has always done this to him, since he put the lad in front of a mirror and said, _I see a young man with potential_ ; nobody else draws out this softness from him, this baring of his vulnerable underbelly. "While you were away I felt often I'd be perfectly happy to only give you assignments in London and the Home Counties from now on. Perhaps the Continent, as long as you could get the train home in time for supper."

He hears rustling as Eggsy moves closer in again, then the warm weight of Eggsy's head on his chest, an arm resting comfortably over his middle. He blinks into the quiet night, holding him close. He thinks that's it for the night so he's surprised by Eggsy's quiet, "Thanks, Harry."

"Keeping you from the plum jobs?" Harry says lightly. "I'd hardly expect you to thank me for that." Eggsy is remarkable, of course, with stunning achievements already behind him in his Kingsman career, but in many ways he's still that young man with potential; still with more to do, more to give. Too much so to let Harry’s late-night sentiment curtail him even before his prime.

"No," Eggsy says. He rubs the cold tip of his nose against Harry's ribcage. "But it's nice that you want to."

The conversation turns then to pillow talk, idle, silly, and intimate; Harry barely registers what’s said. But the tension of the confessional lingers, unsated.

***

He wakes in the small hours and it takes a moment to remember that Eggsy should be there, now, back next to him. He’d kept Eggsy’s side of the bed carefully, never allowing himself to spread into the additional space; it’s nice to look there and see rumpled sheets, a head-dented pillow, proof of life. He gets out of bed and goes in search.

It doesn't take long, a glowing cigarette tip lighting the way to the balcony. Eggsy turns and squints at him when he comes outside. It's a warm night but Eggsy is huddled in one of Harry's old, soft cashmere jumpers.

"Got in the habit," he says sheepishly. "I'll kick it, don't worry."

"Filthy habit," Harry agrees mildly. He gestures and Eggsy hands the ciggie over with an amused expression. Harry takes a long drag, lets the smoke fill his lungs, exhales: it’s got quite a kick to it, the pack probably in Eggsy’s pockets since South America. "Filthy, bloody glorious habit."

"You were a smoker?" Eggsy says. "Wouldn't have thought." His accent is the same as the day Harry met him, years of refinement from spending most of his time with Kingsman colleagues fallen away playing the role of Sarf London big man. Harry finds he quite likes it, feels a touch of nostalgia; it reminds him that he and Eggsy too have a history, a shared path back to one another.

"It was the eighties," Harry says. "Everyone was a smoker. It's been a few years though."

Eggsy looks down the small quiet mews, smiling faintly. Harry moves slowly, telegraphing his movements, and puts his arm around Eggsy's waist, appreciating it with the pang of denial now lifted when Eggsy relaxes deliberately into him, lets their bodies elide gently together.

"Well, this place doesn't change," he says eventually and there's a complicated note in his voice; wistful, a little offended. 

"Not terribly much, no," Harry says. "Bin day is on Tuesdays now. The Hanover is doing a very nice pork belly with crackling. Number nine have put in yet another planning application for some dreadful basement extension."

Eggsy laughs. "The fight goes on."

"It certainly does." Eggsy shifts slightly and Harry lets him go. "Will you come back to bed?"

"In a minute, yeah," Eggsy says. "Sleep tight, babe."

***

He does some work from home in the morning while Eggsy runs through the programme the physio prescribed for his shoulder. Then he drops Eggsy off at his mother’s, popping in for a cup of tea to be polite but inventing an engagement when she offers him lunch, clearly more from duty than desire. Loathe as he is to have Eggsy out of his sight just at the moment, she deserves her time with her family all together. Being in Michelle’s company isn’t comfortable at the best of times, drenched as it is in an unspoken outrage at a man older than her shagging her son, so he escapes as soon as he gracefully can.

Although not before he’s seen Daisy’s cold reception of her older brother, seen the resignation and poorly concealed heartbreak in Eggsy’s face as he stands up, unable to coax her even properly into the room.

"She'll forgive you," he says in bed that evening. Eggsy had come crawling in, morose, and fixed Harry with a look that told him quite clearly to be naked, now, in bed, soon as. They haven't fucked, although Harry has been having increasingly compelling ideas in that direction for the last thirty minutes or so, just curled together and talked. Another simple pleasure Harry is reminding himself to stop and notice since Eggsy's return.

"Yeah," Eggsy says heavily. He props his chin on Harry's chest, ducking his head until Harry puts fingers in the fine strands of his hair, although it doesn’t serve to relax him. "Shouldn't have to though, should she? She's just a kid. She should be able to trust I'll be there."

Harry says nothing. He's hardly qualified on the subject of child psychology, and anyway what is there to say? The job is what it is; he'd never felt a lack of children personally, although he sometimes wonders if Eggsy does. The one time he'd ventured a robust opinion on the subject of Eggsy's concerns about balancing Kingsman with the needs of his mother and sister - broadly speaking, _stiff upper lip, old chap_ , if he recalls correctly - he'd been told where he could stick his shitty ideas from being sent to boarding school too young, and Harry had accepted that as a valid point and not spoken again.

Eggsy sighs, evidently surmising he’s not going to get much more from Harry on this topic. “Shall I come to HQ tomorrow?”

“If you like,” Harry says. “You can write your report from anywhere.” It’s the most innocuous reminder he can manage; he does try to keep Arthur out of their bed.

“Yeah,” Eggsy says, tone dissatisfied, but then he reaches up for a kiss. Harry applies himself diligently and by the time he’s finished with Eggsy all dissatisfaction is very much gone.

***

Four days later the report still isn’t submitted, or even much written, to Harry’s knowledge. It’s certainly not that Eggsy is wanting for material: Merlin has forced him into two more debriefing sessions and they’ve got by now most of the intelligence out of him and have some rudimentary scenarios worked up as to how they could disrupt the cartel’s likely routes to recovery. But there’s always things that come out in the writing that won’t come out in conversation with even the most trusted handler; and Harry has learned not to discount the sense of completeness that comes with turning in a report, the way it leaches the experience out of an agent’s mind ready for the next challenge.

Aside the ordinary worry for one of his best agents, Harry is concerned for Eggsy, who is increasingly tense and withdrawn while getting more demanding in bed, his kisses more vicious, fucking rougher and harder. He’d drawn blood last night, scratching his nails down Harry’s back, and then had been distressed about it and needed to be comforted, all of which was unusual and disquieting. Also, it had bloody hurt.

“Let’s go to the pub for supper,” he says after work, partly for the change of scene and partly for the sake of the plants on the balcony, which are acquiring more cigarette stubs in their soil by the day.

“Okay,” Eggsy says listlessly, prone on the sofa. “Now? Can you wait ‘til this is finished?”

Harry looks at the television, currently being graced by the last ten minutes of The One Show. “Absolutely not.”

He installs Eggsy on a quiet table in the back and orders a couple of pints to start, navigating round the last post-work stragglers on the way back to the table with the drinks and two menus. Eggsy is drumming a beer mat on the table and staring into space but when he notices Harry coming back he still automatically gives him a wide, sweet smile and Harry almost stops in his tracks, unable not to respond in kind.

Eggsy puts his drink up to a toast readily enough.

"To Juliana," Harry says. Eggsy pauses, smiles again, if differently, echoes it, gulps a good quarter of his lager straight off.

"You were there," he says. "I thought so."

"Not for the whole time," Harry says. "But I've been dropping in and out of your debriefs, yes." Enough to hear Eggsy sketch out his relationship with the erstwhile Juliana. To the extent Eggsy's mission had been successful, it had been down to her, albeit unwittingly. Now no longer available to them, Eggsy believing her almost certainly dead in the compound she rarely left. "You can mourn, you know, if you wish. I'm not upset with you, or angry."

"You really don't - mind," Eggsy says. "That I, you know."

"No," Harry says. He requires Eggsy's complete faithfulness and constancy in the professional sense, not in the physical, although as far as he's aware Eggsy doesn't generally exercise the liberty. "You know that."

"It's a bit different, though," Eggsy picks up the menu, glances down at it, flips it over a couple of times before he registers which side the main meals are on. "Isn't it? For months, and I was-" He breaks off abruptly. "I might just have fish and chips actually."

"You were...?" Harry says. He's not sure what finishes the sentence. In love? It doesn't seem likely; he doesn't think that's vanity speaking, or wishful thinking, nice as it is to occupy the foremost spot in Eggsy's heart. Eggsy's sorrow is more inward than that.

"Using her," Eggsy says. "She trusted me. She really did. And he was such a bastard to her already."

"That's the nature of that kind of work, I'm afraid," Harry says gently. "To know people and not be known back."

"Don't know how Nick does so much of it," Eggsy mutters and takes another long drink.

"Well, Tristan is rather wasted on us," Harry says. "He gave a very good Ophelia, you know, his final year at Harrow. People cried. Fish and chips, are you sure? Mushy peas?"

"Obviously," Eggsy says. When Harry takes the menu to return it to the bar Eggsy grabs his hand tightly and Harry squeezes back, his other hand cupping the back of Eggsy's bowed head, and then goes to order.

When they get back home he strips Eggsy down quietly, puts him on his stomach, lets him hide his face in the pillows and kisses down his sleekly muscled back, his broad shoulders that narrow down to a trim waist and a round tight arse.

He fucks Eggsy slow, deep, covering his body slickly with only heat and sweat between them, feeling him tremble against Harry's full length, legs and knees bracketing his securely, nosing the nape of his neck and into his hair; and their hands gripping fiercely, fingers twined, above their heads. Eggsy whines into the bed, Harry's hips and the motion of his cock in Eggsy's arse rubbing Eggsy's cock against the soft bedspread. "You can always come back to this," he says into Eggsy's ear, promises, and Eggsy sobs and comes.

Eggsy lies with his head on Harry's chest after. They don't speak, and it takes Eggsy a long while to fall asleep.

***

The report is in Harry’s inbox the day after next and the follow up meeting with Eggsy quickly scheduled for the same afternoon.

"Don't suppose it's a great read," Eggsy says. He's slouched in the chair, the discreet pinstripe on his suit crumpled into zigzags. Harry wonders if he's called it wrong, having this conversation here in the knights' room, although his instincts are usually excellent; where Eggsy is concerned, impeccable. Eggsy’s body language and tone are casual but the tension that’s been winding in him since his return is poised, waiting to be sprung.

"Not at all," Harry says. "It was an entirely adequate read for an entirely adequate job.” The nearly fatal mistake about the Americans notwithstanding, but in Harry’s experience agents will castigate themselves enough about the big ones. “You acquitted yourself-"

"Adequately?" Eggsy says.

"Yes." Harry lets that hang there, crushing in comparison to the memories in this room of _splendidly_ and _extremely well_ and _brilliantly, my boy_ , the things Eggsy is used to and shines at hearing.

He waits for Eggsy's response. It would almost be an intellectual curiosity, if it weren't so important to them both. There was one flaw Harry had found with Eggsy, at the beginning; one thing that would have stopped him ever really becoming a Kingsman.

"I want another deep cover assignment."

But he's not a man to give up on things any more.

Not that that has any bearing on the answer. "No."

"What?" Eggsy says. "Harry. Arthur? Come on, you've got to let me try again."

"Why didn't it work?" Harry says gently. "Tell me." Eggsy shakes his head, not a refusal, just helpless. Harry sits back and considers for a fragile moment. Then he takes his glasses off, folds them into the off position, and sets them down on the table.

It takes another minute. Then Eggsy says haltingly, "It reminded me of being a kid. After Mum got together with Dean." He'd have his hands in his pockets, if he were standing; as it is he's twisting the signet ring round his finger. Harry lets the silence draw out.

Eggsy looks at him; no, not at him, through him: into some part of himself Harry doesn’t know, can’t follow. "It was just - it was like a volcano, you know? Dangerous. Waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"You were afraid," Harry says.

"The whole time," Eggsy says. He’s trying to sound matter-of-fact but Harry can hear the break behind it, the shame, the old fear that he worries will never quite leave Eggsy, of not being good enough. Spying had come easily to Eggsy, like he’d been made for it, just waiting for Kingsman to stumble across and put to work; of course he’d feel it, finding something he can’t overcome by mere talent and will. "It was - I should have been better."

"Eggsy," he says, as stolidly as he can; now is not the time Eggsy will tolerate softness. "Why do I send you to the most challenging sniping work, and Roxy into complex political situations?"

Eggsy's silent for a minute, like he won't be spoken sense to, much less made to feel better. He says reluctantly, "Because that's what we're good at."

"Because that's what you're good at," Harry confirms. Eggsy looks mutinous, still, but his head is down and he’s listening in that way that means he’s starting to hear. "This is the point of Kingsman being a team, Eggsy. You know that. Nobody gains by our sending an agent with the stabilisers on. It’s quite all right for people not to be the best at everything."

He pauses, studying his one-time proposal. It’s hard for anyone in the field to have a relationship with those outside it, and he never really bothered himself, but it’s become yet another challenge since he met Eggsy and took on Arthur in quick succession. He wonders whether Eggsy thinks he’s being given special treatment in the refusal of further deep cover jobs, and if so whether he thinks it’s coddling or cruelty.

No matter. He has a job to do and a lover to comfort, and if the same means reaches both ends, well, he’s never confused the value of his work with its nobility. "For example, your very own esteemed mentor and sponsor was a total failure at deep cover."

"But we talked about it before I went," Eggsy says. "The job you did in Ireland. You told me."

"I may have edited out some key aspects of how it ended," Harry says. "Suffice it to say the Arthur at the time was retired with the organisation's eternal gratitude a month later following a heart attack."

"Harry!" Eggsy says. His small laugh is disbelieving but it’s been enough; he turns to Harry with his expression blossoming the way Harry loves, recriminations and self-doubt beginning to recede behind hope. "You never."

"Bloody nightmare," Harry confirms. "Kingsman directed me towards the work and skills where I do excel and I think I can safely say we've all been much happier."

“And you haven’t had a heart attack.”

“Not yet, at any rate.”

***

“Last one,” Eggsy says. He puts his fingers up to Harry’s lips and Harry takes the cigarette out of them, smokes for a minute before he hands it back for a ceremonial final drag. This pack of twenty has lasted over a month; Eggsy’s shoulder is fully healed, his eyes are clear and his shoulders loose, he’s put on weight and colour from good food and careful exercise. He kisses Harry, tells him things, lets himself be held without hesitation. The past is becoming the past.

He holds the door open for Eggsy and follows him inside the shop, straight through to the knights’ table. Eggsy sits down at his right hand - a rather dashing new suit in charcoal worsted looking just so, tie knot extravagant, cuffs shot perfectly - and slips on his glasses.

“New mission, Galahad,” Harry says, and Eggsy smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](concernedlily.tumblr.com)!


End file.
